EA says it will go 100 per cent digital

Speaking to Games Industry Biz EA's Labels president Frank Gibeau said that the business is clearly at a tipping point and EA will be100 percent digital in the near future. He said that while retail was a great channel for us and it had great relationships with our partners there, but the ultimate relationship is the connection that we have with the gamer.

“If the gamer wants to get the game through a digital download and that's the best way for them to get it, that's what we're going to do. It has a lot of enhancements for our business. It allows us to keep more that we make. It allows us to do some really interesting things from a service level standpoint; we can be a lot more personalized with what we're doing," Gibeau said.

EA isn't about to abandon retail and its valuable retail partners tomorrow, though because gamers will still want that too. But he thinks it is inevitable that the cloud, streaming and servers will be the way forward.